Topic: Apple v. Samsung

In continued Apple v. Samsung court proceedings, a top Samsung designer denied copying Apple's icons, and an expert witness said the Cupertino company's design patents should be invalidated due to prior art.

Apple v. Samsung presiding Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday seemed to have had enough of the parties' legal maneuvering, the latest being an Apple and Intel bid to block testimony from a Samsung witness just hours before he was slated to take the stand.

Samsung on Tuesday moved forward with arguments in its case against Apple, going on the offensive by alleging the iPhone maker infringed on three patents regarding the usability of multi-feature portable devices like smartphones.

An Apple v. Samsung court document filed on Monday reveals an e-mail in which a top Samsung designer said to "learn through the lessons of the iPhone," not to make replica handsets based on Apple's popular designs.

Apple's patent licensing director Boris Teksler testified that the company licensed a series of patents to Microsoft, but failed to reach a licensing agreement with Samsung despite reaching out to the company in October of 2010.

In an opposition filing on Friday, Samsung argued the Apple v. Samsung jury should hear testimony from Hyoung Shin Park, principal designer of the contested F700 smartphone that the company's attorneys want to use as proof of non-infringement on Apple's design patents.

It was discovered Thursday that Samsung lawyer Susan Estrich represented the company in Apple v. Samsung despite not having the proper license to practice law in the suit's jurisdiction of the Northern District of California, a mistake seen as yet another gaffe in the South Korean company's case management.

Comedian Conan O'Brien opened his monologue last night with a video spoof of the Apple vs. Samsung dispute, bringing even more publicity to the case that has already been deemed the "patent trial of the decade."

Apple was able to get a Samsung internal document admitted in full in its case against the South Korean company on Tuesday, with the report offering a potentially crucial comprehensive side-by-side comparison of the Galaxy S and the iPhone.

Former Apple and NeXT graphic designer Susan Kare took the stand on Tuesday, saying that she saw "substantial simiarities" between Samsung's home screen icons and those of Apple's iPhone, echoing previous testimony from Apple expert witness Peter Bressler.